Stormont has 161 press officers, more than Belfast has journalists

"Most news in Northern Ireland isn't generated by news outlets, it's generated by government and bodies funded by government".

That statement by political commentator Newton Emerson came before his revelation that the power-sharing executive at Stormont "employs 161 press officers" which is "more than all the newspaper journalists in Belfast."

As you can see from the above clip, he was making a more nuanced point about the "scare story machine" during last week's BBC Northern Ireland current affairs programme Hearts and Minds.

But there will be journalists across Britain - and maybe elsewhere - who will recognise another of his asides about official press releases being repeated by "an increasingly hard-pressed media."